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D-Life

Live strong with

Type 2 Diabetes. 

Intro

D-Life is a mobile application that helps those with Type 2 Diabetes who have fallen off the wagon and want to transition into a healthy, sustainable diabetic lifestyle. Living with diabetes is manageable; however, sometimes it may seem unsustainable due to poor lifestyle choices. D-Life will help users climb back onto the proverbial “horse!”

 

Challenges

Introducing a new lifestyle so that over time users can start incorporating healthy habits, such as counting calories and working out. The first steps are to start measuring blood sugar levels and taking medication.

 

Goals

To feel supported while managing your diabetic lifestyle. 

 

Roles

UX l UI l IxD Designer

 

Platform

Mobile l iOS

 

Deliverables

User Personas l Competitor Analysis  User Flow l User testing

Wireframes l Prototype

 

Tools

Paper and Pencil l Photoshop      Invision l Illustrator l Lucidchart    Marvel l Principle l Noun Project          Pexel

 

 

Diabetes is discouraging.

 

“I know what I should do, but I just can’t seem to do it. maybe I don’t have the energy; maybe I don’t care.”

Diabetes doesn’t go away.

​

"Sometimes I feel like I've had enough! After 10 years with diabetes, I just want a break. I need a vacation from diabetes!”

Diabetes is frustrating.

 

"What irks me the most is that after all that work, my numbers still don’t make sense! should I even bother?”

Facts about Diabetes

 

"In 2015, an estimated 1.5 million new cases of diabetes were diagnosed in the U.S."

– National Diabetes Statistics Report, 2017

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"Per 1,000 people, 2.6 have an amputation of the toe, and 0.8 have an amputation of the foot due to controlled diabetic lifestyles."

– The Diabetes Council

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"People with diabetes are 1.5 times more likely to have a stroke than people without diabetes."

– Healthline.com

User Demographic

Ages: 18 and above

Gender: All

Type of person: People with Type 2 Diabetes.

Sample of Interview Questions for Personas

  1. ​​​​At what age were you diagnosed with diabetes?

  2. After you were first diagnosed with diabetes, did you take medication? 

  3. Tell me about your daily routine in regards to your diabetes. 

  4. What is the thing that can motivate or help you to commit to staying healthy? 

Personas

Competitive Analysis

Direct Competitors

Glucose Companion

​

"Glucose Companion is a handy blood sugar and weight tracker."

​​​​

  • $1.99 for pro version.

  • Easy to use.

  • Obtains blood sugar results without motivating the user.

  • Generates blood sugar/weight reports.

Glucose Buddy

​

"Glucose Buddy is the most comprehensive diabetes management app."

​

  • $4.99/month for pro version.

  • Generates blood sugar/activities reports.

  • Calculates A1C predictions.

  • Easy to use with a focus on getting blood sugar results.

mySugr

 

"mySugr: make diabetes suck less!"

 

  • $2.99/month for pro version.

  • The interface is confusing to use; unsure of each function's purpose.

  • Unsure which type of data the application is requesting.

  • Tries to gamify the user’s lifestyle

Indirect Competitors

Fitbit

 

"Live a healthier, more active life with Fitbit, the world’s leading app for tracking all-day activity, workouts, sleep and more."

​​

  • Need to purchase a FitBit device to use app.

  • Gamifies daily activities and workouts.

  • Records caloric intake.

  • Sends reminders to record caloric intake or output.

MyFitnessPal

 

"Whether you want to lose weight, tone up, get healthy, change your habits, or start a new diet, you’ll love MyFitnessPal."

 

  • Can sync other fitness apps.

  • Records caloric intake.

  • Base version is Free, however, premium is $9.99 per month or $49.99 per year.

  • Sends reminders to record caloric intake or output.

Research Findings

Interview Discovery

 

 

  • Interviewees state it is difficult to live with Type 2 Diabetes without support from friends and family members. 

  • Most interviewees believe that there is a cure and they look forward to a life without medication. 

  • Interviewees state that in the beginning, lifestyle changes were easy because of momentum; however, it is very difficult to sustain healthy living because of other factors (i.e. vacations, social events, work events, etc.).

  • Interviewees admit that they have not seen a doctor for physicals or had blood-work done in years.

  • Lastly, interviewees admit that they fear for their health in the future.

 

Competitor Discovery

​​

  • Most diabetic applications are focused on getting daily blood sugar readings. 

  • Most diabetic applications do not have a caloric report that allows diabetic users to input their daily consumption of calories or activity caloric burn. 

  • There is a need for gamification to sustain a healthy diabetic lifestyle. 

  • There is a need for daily reminders for diabetic users to take their medications and to visit their physician semi-annually and/or quarterly.   

Lo-Fi Prototype & User Testing

After creating the personas and researching the direct and indirect competitors, I have a better understanding of how I want the app to work and feel. I like starting with lo-fi mock-ups because it’s more effective and efficient when making adjustments and including new iterations. Also, it allows for more discussion when testing a prototype. 

"Why do I want to add my caloric intake and outtake again. I already have MyFitnessPal."

- Emma T

"I see why it's important for diabetics to test their blood sugar so often. Is it possible to give the app some type personality?"

- Dan F

"I want more visual queue."

- Mike Y

Results From User Testing

  • Users wanted to have an avatar to cheer them on or to chastise them about their blood sugar results and daily life choices. 

  • Users wanted to know if the D-Life would integrate with other apps such as MyFitnessPal or Fitbit because they are conditioned to those apps as their caloric recording and fitness tools.

  • Users liked the holistic feel of the D-Life app: recording caloric intake, exercise, medication and daily blood sugar results.   

User Flow

After designing the initial mock-up, I took a step back to think about how the user would like the application to flow and be organized. 

Wireframe

  1. ​​Current date when launching app; however, will change date when pressing the arrow button.

  2. Background color to tell users if users are doing well (green), fair (yellow) or bad (red).

  3. Avatar - Personal cheerleader for users.

  4. Arrow Button - Shifts back to previous dates. 

  5. Glucose Level - Shows the result of what was recorded by the user.

  6. Medicine - Reminder of how many more rounds of medications to take for the day. 

  7. Caloric Intake - Shows how much calories consumed.

  8. Caloric Out - Shows how many calories have been used.

  9. Home Button - Homepage/Dashboard

  10. Log Button - Shows the caloric intake and output.

  11. Add Button - Recording medication usage and glucose levels.

  12. Report Button - Weekly report caloric intake/output, medication completion and glucose levels.

  13. Menu Button - Adding additional information about user and customize settings to users needs. 

Hi-Fi Prototyping and User Testing

After several reiterations and user testing, I got the app to look and feel the way the users and I wanted it to be.

 

Improvements were:

  1. Added integration with other fitness apps.

  2. Created an avatar that is visually friendly and slightly sassy to the users. 

  3. Designed more visual icons so users can quick view. 

  4. Created a strong motivation for users to test their blood sugar.

"I love how the avatar is. It feels like real life gamification."

-Diana B

"Really happy that the app does integrate with other fitness apps. I feel like finally, I would get a better sense of my diabetes is at and what to make changes to."

-Peter P

"I like the reminder features."

-Frank A

Prototype

Results and Improvements

Users like the concept of an app that supports people with Type 2 Diabetes. They look forward to an engaging app like D-Life that can help them maintain their Type 2 Diabetes and stay on track with their diabetic lifestyle. However, some questions that came up were:
 
"Can I customize my avatar?"
"Will there be more avatar selections?"
"Can I adjust or customize the avatar's personality to give a tough love response?"
 
I asked users why they would want sassier responses. Some users mentioned that they respond better to tough love comments. However, in order to avoid the generic monotone personas, a variety of personality settings will be offered: polite, encouraging, sassy, blunt, etc. 
As for the customizing the avatar's graphics or creating more avatars to choose from, I responded, "Yes!" There is always room to customize. However, that is a future design request and I wanted to create something with a clear MVP. 

Design Thinking and Reflection

The original concept of the D-Life was to motivate first-time diagnosed diabetics to change their lifestyle. However, during user interviews I discovered that many users had a difficult time maintaining a healthy lifestyle after their first 2 years following their diagnosis. Usually, newly diagnosed users would go to a mandatory nutrition class that was prescribed by their doctor. This would help them understand how their lifestyle needed to change. However, after the healthy living kick wore off, life and old habits started to reemerge. 

 

Therefore, the D-Life focuses on the needs of Type 2 Diabetic users who require more support. Although Type 2 Diabetes is a manageable disease with healthy eating, active living and medication it is still difficult to manage at times. Some do not understand the effect of the foods they are ingesting or feel like they have the willpower to say no to sugar and carbs. Some are addicted to eating socially and cannot refuse the food placed in front of them. And some simply lost the genetic lottery, unable to process sugars at normal rates despite how much clean eating or exercise they do.

 

When first developing the initial prototype, the app simply recorded the user’s caloric intake and output.  However, the question arose, “Do I want to compete with an app like Fitbit or Garmin?” My responded: "No." Then I asked myself, “How about the food? Do you want to compete with an app like MyFitnessPal?” Again, my answer was no. Both apps serve a different function and different types of users.  I wanted  D-Life to service only users who are diabetic. What all 3 apps have in common is that they are all popular lifestyle apps. Therefore, I wanted D-Life to integrate with other fitness and health apps so that it would be convenient for the users and reduce work for developers. D-Life's focus is to provide support for their users on their journey to a healthy diabetic lifestyle and to help its users reach an A1C result below a 6.0.  

 

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© 2026 A Production By Jen Tran

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